Alfred laughed heartily, as he replied, "Haven't I though! What with being up in the morning foddering cattle, milking cows, then out in the field ploughing and harrowing, I've had a terrible hard time of it!"
The captain took one of Alfred's hand in his own. It was as white and soft as an infant's, and gave the lie direct to all he had been saying.
"Those hands have always been my misfortune," cried the boy, the slightest tinge of color being perceptible, as he saw the gentleman mistrusted him. "You see they're naturally small, and the old woman was kind of proud of 'em, and do what I would, she'd always make me wear gloves or mittens. The old man scolded and stormed about it, and said my hands were no better than his; and so that's why—"
"Well, you wont be compelled to wear gloves, now," said the captain, interrupting him; "the boatswain will soon cure you, my lad;" and there was a sly twinkle in his eye, which showed he was willing the youth should be thus cured.
Before he had been one day on the water, poor Amos, as he was called, became dreadfully sea-sick, and began to regret most heartily the hasty step he had taken. He lay down on the deck, feeling too utterly helpless to get into his berth. He thought he was going to die; and his disobedience to his parents, his unkindness to his only sister, his unruly conduct at school, his bad example to his schoolmates, came up in dreadful array before him, like so many witnesses, to send him to everlasting ruin. In his distress he cried aloud; but there was no one to soothe his pain, or even to sympathize with his grief;—no kind mother to hold his aching head, or administer medicine to relieve the deadly sickness which so awfully oppressed him;—no one to bind up his swollen, bleeding hands. The rough tars who saw him lying, pale and weeping, upon the deck, only laughed at his misery, or gave him a kick to arouse him, while they offered to give him a junk of salt pork.
The only one who showed him any kindness was the black cook, who brought him warm water in a small tin pot, and told him if he would drink it he would soon be relieved.
In three days he was as well as ever, in bodily health; but in morals he had sadly deteriorated, bad as he was before. He was now forced to work, and work hard. He was obliged to stand his watch like the older sailors; to go aloft, to reef and furl the sails, to slush or grease the masts, sweep and clear up decks, coil up rigging, pass the balls of spun-yarn, or otherwise assist the older sea-men.
Then when it was fair weather, and no particular work going forward, he was required to learn to draw and make knots in the spunyarn or ropes, to set the top-gallant sail, to reef or reduce a sail, to reeve the gear, or pass the end of a rope through a block or hole in the vessel, and to learn the names and uses of the ropes.
In addition to all this, if any man wanted help in his job, or there was any duty to be done aloft or about decks which did not require the strength or skill of a seaman, he was expected to start promptly, and do it without waiting to be called upon.
Poor Alfred! He looked back upon his school-life, which, except as an opportunity for some wicked sport, he had heretofore considered as in the highest degree irksome, as a life of bliss compared with what he now endured. "What a fool I was!" he repeated to himself many times in a day. But now there was no escape for him.